Consciousness returned sometime later. Minutes, hours, she had no way of telling. Time had been a strange phenomenon for the past decade. Wasting away in hiding, some days sped by while others crept slowly and painfully. They never left hiding in those years, always had someone to do it for them, so even seeing the sun had been a rarity for the Gilbert children. Whether the lanterns contained flame or not only signaled day and night.

Upon waking, her eyes locked on a lantern hanging from the center of the ceiling, full of warm candlelight. For a moment she forgot where she was and thought, just maybe, the last few months had been nothing but a horrid nightmare. If she stood up and walked down the hall, she'd find her pensive brother pouring over notes and plans. Her eyes adjusted to the light and reality set back in. No. He'd been killed. Grief tried to grab hold, but with a squeeze of her eyes she pushed it away. Grief had done enough in her short life. No longer would she let it seize control.

A woman with brown skin and curly almost-black hair faced away from her, preparing a mixture at a wooden table on the other side of the room. This was a different room than the one she'd been in earlier, and while they were nearly the same in size and structure, this one was equipped with tools of all kinds. Shelves lined the walls, filled with small glass bottles containing all kinds of materials from leaves to mushrooms to things she couldn't even begin to identify. Some bottles sat filled with glittering liquid, swirling, enticing.

Elena attempted to sit up, trying to prop herself up on her good arm, but the entire left side of her body ached, and even the small maneuver was enough to elicit a grunt as she collapsed back onto the bed. This, at least, was better than the table she'd been laid out upon in the previous room. Now that the older man had decided she wasn't a threat, apparently that meant a more comfortable sleeping surface.

"Hey, try to relax—" the woman started, turning toward Elena as she tried to make herself comfortable.

Immediately, Elena recognized the warm brown eyes looking at her and wondered how the girl she'd grown up with hadn't recognized her in return. She tried to sit up again, needing a better look. But yes, it really was her. "Bonnie?" Elena asked, squinting at the woman ten years older just as she was. "Is that you?"

The confused expression on Bonnie's face ruined the potential reunion, maybe it really wasn't her. But as Bonnie's eyes seemed to adjust to the sight of her patient and the sound of her voice, she nearly dropped the glass bottle in her hands. "Elena?"

Elena offered an awkward smile. What was it like for Bonnie to see her again? The last time they'd seen each other, they were both being ushered into safe rooms.

"I didn't know you were alive," Bonnie said, a bit of distance to her voice.

She wanted to explain everything, to tell Bonnie what had happened over the last ten years, and why she'd disappeared so suddenly without a goodbye. She wanted to know what Bonnie had heard in the last decade, wanted to ask what she was doing with the older gentlemen, and how she'd survived the siege. But there were too many questions and her head still felt foggy with pain and grief and a sense of ill-belonging, as if she didn't deserve to be greeted by an old friend.

If Jeremy had known what the remaining people of Miria thought of them for going into hiding, he never told Elena. It made complete sense that people would assume them both dead and maybe that was better than assuming them cowards.

That didn't make it any easier to form words, to know how to address someone she hadn't seen in so long. Her eyes dropped to the floor as shame took over. There had always been people to come back to, she should have known better to believe Jeremy's insinuations that all of her friends had perished. Maybe if she'd convinced him to come out of hiding earlier, maybe things could have been different. But that was just life, wasn't it? A string of maybes and what-ifs, relying on knowing the turnout in order to change the plan. She tried to remember how it felt back then, how hard the decision to stay with Jeremy had been, how idiotic he made her feel for wanting to return. It had been difficult to convince him of anything, and maybe no impossible knowledge of the future would have been able to change his stubborn mind.

Bonnie moved on without response, pushing past the tense silence to care for Elena regardless of all the time lost between them. Someone had removed her breastplate and cut the sleeve of her shirt off to reveal the nasty wound left behind by the arrow. Someone, most likely Bonnie, had carefully wrapped it. Now, she stepped forward to unwrap the dressing.

"You're lucky," Bonnie said, and Elena was certain she'd never heard those words before. "Because of where they struck you, we were able to remove the arrow easily. Unfortunately, the arrows used by the Salvatores' army are often dipped in poison, as was yours. I applied a salve to draw out the poison, which should work quickly. Then, I can stitch you up."

The Salvatores' army. Oh, how the very words made her teeth clench. She wished to wipe his very name off the map.

The princess laid back, letting Bonnie move her shoulder and arm however she needed. The salve stung at first before providing relief. She applied a new dressing to the wound, wrapping it once more. Handing Elena a small vial, she said, "This should help with the side effects of the poison. The fever, hot flashes, hallucinations." More things she didn't need to deal with.

Elena took the vial, her eyes meeting Bonnie's. "Thank you."

Bonnie nodded. "Alaric has been waiting to speak with you. Are you feeling well enough for me to send him in?"

"Yes, only—"

"He doesn't know you're the Princess?"

Elena let out a small, sad laugh. "I'm not the Princess of much anymore, Bon." The old nickname slipped out and hurt both of them in the process.

"You're alive. That matters," she said in a tone that made Elena believe, if only briefly, that it did matter. Bonnie wrung her hands together in front of her stomach. "Is Jeremy?"

Looking at the floor once more, Elena shook her head, feeling a fresh wave of guilt wash over her. If only, if only, if only. It changed nothing.

Bonnie nodded, her lips pressed together into a firm line. "I'll let Alaric know you're feeling better."

The silence that followed her former friend's departure wrapped tight around her neck. It was nearly unbearable. This was not how reunions were supposed to go—not that she'd expected to experience any. But there were so many things she still wanted to know, so many questions she should have asked. Should she have jumped up out of bed despite the pain to throw her arms around a friend she thought long gone? Would Bonnie have even wanted that? How did she see Elena now? As a potential friend? As a coward? And what about Caroline? Had she made it out too? There was both no time and all the time in the world for these dizzying thoughts to take hold, and take hold they did.

TEN YEARS AGO

Elena managed to slip back into her room and re-cover the hidden door with the tapestry, pack her small trunk, and return to their meeting place without anyone noticing her lengthy disappearance. Her luck ended there.

At least twenty guards surrounded the royal family on all sides as they made their way from the servant's entrance to the castle grounds. Outside of the servant's entrance was a small dirt path frequented by caravans delivering goods and supplies, that now functioned as their escape route. Guards took their bags and loaded them into the back compartment of the first caravan. The King and Queen took the first, with their highest ranking generals, and the children took the second, with another general and several guards. They didn't mean to be inconspicuous, only safe and fast in their exit.

Maybe the Salvatores had meant to give them hope, letting them get as far away as they did from the castle before they ambushed. Or maybe they had simply driven right into a trap preset for their arrival. Even ten years later, Elena would still not know the truth. It would only serve as another thing to keep her up at night. But fourteen year old Elena didn't know that, couldn't. Instead, as the caravans traveled along the dirt road away from the only home she'd ever known, she thought about the friends she'd left behind, about the conversation she'd had with Damon on the training grounds, about the arrow fired wide, about the look on his face. It all played on repeat in her head. Not once did she think that this would be the last day with her mother.

After an hour on the road, the first caravan hit a snag—perhaps a large root—and veered of road, the horses whinnying loudly. No one noticed the arrow embedded in the chest of one of the king's horses until much later.

Jeremy and Elena's caravan came to a halt as well, and one of the guards jumped out to check on the situation. He didn't scream as the arrow pierced his neck. When the guard didn't return, another opened the canvas lined caravan door. The fallen guard's body was on display before them, for all to see. "Ambush," he whispered under his breath. The remaining guard and the general departed, leaving the children alone with a word of guidance, stay. Of course, neither wanted to do so, especially as the sound of clashing steel grew louder. Jeremy departed first, drawing his sword. Like Damon, he'd been trained from a young age. After all, every King should be able to hold their own in a fight.

Now, Elena had never been the patient type. She was impulsive, in fact, bursting into rooms uninvited, digging into meals before prayer had been finished, taking lessons when she wasn't supposed to. Her entire life had been an act of defiance from the very beginning. But this time, she listened. She stayed. She stayed long enough for a soldier she didn't recognize to fling open the door of the caravan and grab her roughly by the arm, dragging her out into the sun.

"Unhand me," Elena yelled as the unfamiliar soldier twisted her arm behind her back and lifted her, his other arm barred across her chest. He was unfathomably strong, and Elena immediately knew she didn't stand a chance. But that didn't stop her from thrashing in his grip.

Letting out heavy breaths, Elena's eyes surveyed the scene. The other caravan was on its side just off the road, with guards surrounding it as they fought back soldiers in black. Squinting in the sun, she could just make out the Salvatore family crest on the breastplate of a man taller than the rest, charging into two guards and knocking them to the ground. The soldier holding her walked forward, and she could hear Jeremy's voice in the distance even though she could not see him. He seemed to cry, "Father, wake up. You have to wake up," and Elena feared the worst.

Her captor gripped her tighter as she began to kick at his legs and punch with her free arm. "King Gilbert, come out with your hands in the air. We have the Princess, and we are not afraid to harm her to get what we want."

And what exactly did they want, besides the lot of them dead? She pleaded with her father mentally, willing him to stay in the caravan, praying he had some sort of plan. But Jeremy's equally pleading voice still traveled over the heads of the soldiers fighting viciously against their guards, and it seemed the King had still not risen from the accident.

At the same time, two very important things happened. First, Elena used her free hand to grab one of the daggers sheathed under the skirt of her dress. Second, the door to the caravan was thrown open, and someone began to climb out.

Elena thrust the dagger backward into the soldier's leg, just below the edge of his plate armor. It was surprisingly easy. He must not have been expecting any serious fight from her. A mistake. He dropped her as the blade sunk into his thigh all the way to the hilt, and she ran full speed away, pushing through the ranks of her family's own guards to get to the emerging Queen.

Seconds before Elena could throw her arms around the Queen, an act of fear, a child needing their mother in a horrifying moment, an arrow soared through the air from above and went straight through the Queen's neck.

Miranda gurgled, trying to get words out, trying to say anything. Elena screamed, covering whatever last testimony her mother had. Blood poured not only from the wound but out of her neck as she fell forward into her daughter's arms. Elena dropped to her knees to catch her mother's body, barely holding her. She was unaware of the scream that wrangled loose from her own mouth or the tears that flooded down her cheeks. Not even the pandemonium the single arrow had caused registered in her mind. All she could think about was her mother's warm body in her arms and the blood, so much blood, cascading onto her gown.

The next minutes were a haze. Someone pulling the body off of her as she refused to let go. Someone prying her arms away as she screamed. Soldiers retreating as their guards got more vicious in response to this killing. The sound of the caravan being righted a few feet away. Someone lifting her up by the armpits and placing her in the caravan. The stunned face of her brother. The men restraining her now conscious father, preventing him from exiting. The body, once her mother and now just the body, left on the dirt road with a handful of guards to prevent them from being followed, and finally the silence of the caravan as the horses careened down the road at full speed.

PRESENT DAY

The Princess of Nothing waited alone. It was a few minutes before Alaric—this must have been the man she'd spoken to earlier—arrived. He knocked twice on the door before stepping into the room.

Maintaining eye contact, Elena took a deep breath. "There's something you should know," she said, successfully propping herself up with her good arm. If Bonnie trusted him, she saw no reason to keep her secret to herself.

"There's a lot you should know," Alaric said. "But you first, I suppose."

"My name is Elena," she said, watching the man's face, checking for a reaction of any kind. His eyes widened slightly, almost imperceptibly. It was just a name, anyone else could have had it, could have even been named after the lost Princess herself. "Elena Gilbert. I am—was the Princess of Miria."